There have been long-standing feng shui rumours surrounding Parkview Square. Chief among them, that its architectural features are meant to deflect negative forces from neighbouring buildings. None of them are true. “I don’t think my grandfather had a feng shui master come when he was working on the building,” says Vicky Hwang, founder and CEO of Atlas. The much-publicised, often photographed bar occupies the building’s grand lobby and houses an eight-metre gin tower.
Hwang is the eighth of 16 grandchildren of the late property magnate Hwang Chou-Shiuan, who founded construction and development business Chyau Fwu Group— today also known as property conglomerate Parkview Group. Until the pandemic, Hwang was also the CEO of Chyau Fwu Development Singapore, which among other pursuits operates Parkview Square.
Contrary to popular belief, she explains, the building’s Gotham City-like design was inspired by the London-based, Art Deco-styled Battersea Power Station, a decommissioned coal-fired power station which used to be in the family’s portfolio. Her grandfather envisioned Parkview Square as “something solid and timeless, like it could be here forever,” she continues, as he knew it would likely be his final project. He passed away in 2004, two years after its completion.
It was only when Hwang was setting up Atlas that she arranged for a feng shui master to visit, so Parkview Square boasts a few feng shui features. She has no qualms revealing the key geomantic piece: a massive metallic orb at the dropoff point. It was a serendipitous addition. “The master was also the guy who’d advised Duo (the twin-tower development opposite Parkview Square). He told us that the feng shui philosophy behind Duo’s design is two dragons holding up a pearl and there was supposed to be a big metallic ball in its courtyard, but for some reason, it wasn’t put up. It’s supposed to capture good fortune, so he said to me, ‘Why don’t you put it up?’
“That’s how we ended up with the ball. This is the second one. When we’d put up the first one, my uncle George was like, ‘It’s too small’ and went to get a bigger one made,” she recounts with a chuckle.
Parkview Square is one of Singapore’s most iconic landmarks. Atlas consistently ranks among the world’s best bars and is a destination in itself. But it’d be reductive to attribute their success to good feng shui alone; Hwang was a mover and shaker when heading up Chyau Fwu Development, and a visionary when it came to Atlas. For instance, she insisted on doing away with the wine bar that previously occupied the lobby, a spot that had become “very forgotten” after her grandfather’s passing, and stuck to her guns when met with resistance.
“I was told, ‘This lobby is peanuts compared to what we do upstairs. It’s not our core business. We’re landlords’. But I was like, ‘This space needs a dedicated team of professionals. What it has become isn’t congruent with how we enjoy hospitality as a family. Also, if we’re talking about trying to keep Parkview Square relevant, the lobby is the public face of the building. It’s the most visible way of conveying our values’.”
Hwang opened Atlas in 2017. Her brainchild has just been paying dividends since. “I remember the day it opened. There were already people waiting in line and it just hasn’t stopped.”
BEACHWEAR TO BAR
Hwang is the daughter of Victor Hwang, the second of Hwang Chou-Shiuan’s four sons. She was born in the States and grew up alongside extended family in Hong Kong. Parkview Group owns residential and hospitality properties in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan, France, and the United Kingdom.
Her grandfather was born in China and grew up in modest circumstances. As an adolescent, he provided for his siblings by taking on the identities of wealthy boys of his age; affluent families used to engage impostors so their sons could avoid conscription. “He would join the military on their behalf, escape, and repeat the process. One time, he got caught and was supposed to be executed, but the platoon told him, ‘You’re just going to have to join us now’. He ended up rising through the ranks,” says Hwang, adding that the small construction company he started after the war eventually became Chyau Fwu Group.
Hwang and her brother attended French school because her maternal side of the family is Vietnamese and speak the language. Her parents took a laidback approach to parenting. “I was never pressured to do anything. I’d be stressing over my exams and my mother would go, ‘Oh Vicky, let’s go have lunch. Let’s go shopping’. I’d be like, ‘What’re you talking about?’ I’d also asked my father if I should study business. His reply was, ‘You’ve got your whole life to learn how to do business. Just study something that you’re interested in’.”
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Services from Georgetown University and Master of Arts in East Asian Studies from Stanford University, she embarked on her first entrepreneurial venture on a lark. “I saw that Mango had a franchise concept and told my father, ‘I’m going to open a Mango at M Street in Georgetown. This fashion category is cool and everything is turnkey.’ He was like, ‘What do you know about retail? Maybe you should see if you like it first’. So, he gave me a boutique space in a hotel he had in St Tropez.”
The beachwear boutique raked in more than room service, but Hwang moved on after just one year at her father’s behest. “He was like, ‘Okay, you’re done with that. I’ve got something else for you to do’. It was Battersea Power Station and I was in charge of leasing.”
Following that stint in London, she was tasked with converting a 37.6-ha family-owned chateau into a resort and spa, so she and her husband moved to the French countryside with just 3,000 inhabitants. Planning permission alone ended up taking three years. By that time, her family wanted her in Singapore to lead Chyau Fwu Development.
Hwang arrived on our shores in 2013. “There was a lot of development happening around Parkview Square. I came on board to oversee the opportunities and make sure we didn’t look like the tired neighbour in the area.”
She eventually stepped down from her role as CEO to devote her full attention to Atlas. “Luckily, Atlas has been successful,” she says while looking around for wood to knock on. “F&B and hospitality aren’t like property development, where you can build apartments, sell them, then move on to the next thing. It can’t just be like, ‘I’ll put a team in place and then leave it to run alone’. But I really like the business. It’s way more fun than renovating bathrooms and lift lobbies.”
AN INIMITABLE EXPERIENCE
Atlas is home to one of the biggest gin collections in the world and focuses on the distilled spirit for three reasons. Firstly, relevance. Many of the cocktails we drink today were created during the Art Deco period and gin is a common ingredient. Secondly, affordability “Our bar consultants were like, ‘You’ve got to fill up your tower, but you’ll bankrupt yourself if you fill it with whisky’. Unlike whisky, gin doesn’t go up to hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Hwang explains.
Thirdly, versatility. Gin does not require refrigeration because it is shelf-stable, and allows for greater experimentation due to the variety of flavours. But there are no plans to further augment the current collection of 1,300 gins. The goal was never to create the largest collection, but one that is well-curated and purposeful, Hwang adds.
Last year, the bar launched its own Atlas London Dry Gin. It made commercial sense despite market saturation given the sheer volume of gin the bar pours daily. “We’ve more than 500 covers a day and we’re the biggest consumer of gins in our signature cocktails. It was just a huge opportunity.”
Atlas London Dry Gin is already making a splash, earning a gold award at the inaugural Global Drinks Intel New Products Awards 2025. But while Atlas has several prominent notches on its belt, Hwang views awards as a double-edged sword.
“Awards are very gratifying, but past a certain point, businesses have to move beyond them. It’s just like how it is in Formula One. It’s boring if Ferrari wins all the time, so they keep changing the rules to let other people win.”
Vicky Hwang on accolades
In her opinion, Atlas has managed to stay in the game amid rampant F&B closures because of a strong concept and an inimitable experience by virtue of a unique space. “But it’s not just all about the space,” she makes clear. “The space existed before there was Atlas and back then it was like a crappy coffee shop. It was the kind of bar people would take their mistresses to. This shows it isn’t just about aesthetics. At Atlas, we care deeply about the experience.”
A commitment to accessibility helps. “Obviously, what we do comes at quite a high operating cost, so we do have to charge a certain amount. But we try to make it possible for people to come even if not on special occasions because we don’t just want tourists—we want regulars. Two years ago, I’d hired a new general manager and he was like, ‘You know, the coffee here is the same price as at Starbucks. We could charge so much more’. I replied, ‘Yeah, but that’s not the point. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should’. I think people recognise that.”
Although Atlas will turn 10 next year, Hwang remains prudent when it comes to expansion. She doesn’t see the need for another outlet right now. “I’ve seen so many places expand for the sake of it, but opening and then closing wasn’t how I was raised to do business. We focus on growing within what we already do. Maybe I think too much, but I’d be really careful in this environment not just in Singapore, but also internationally. The world is just so unpredictable.”
It adds up. There’s no need for her to go for all the marbles when she has already accomplished what she’d set out to do. “One day, a few years after Atlas opened, I was outside in the courtyard looking in. The sun was setting and it was glowing inside. The bartenders were shaking cocktails in their white jackets, servers were going around, and people were smiling and laughing.
“In that moment I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve done it’.”
Photography Joel Low
Styling Chia Wei Choong
Hair Rick Yang/Artistry Studios using Goldwell StyleSign
Makeup Keith Bryant Lee using Tom Ford Beauty
Photography assistant Eddie Teo
Fashion assistant Megan Lim
